January 20, 2006

'Veronica Mars' scoop

In this massive post, Rob Thomas, creator and executive producer of
"Veronica Mars," talks about the Wednesday episode of his UPN show, "Donut Run" (which he wrote and directed), and
much more.

A warning: parts of this interview contain spoilers about upcoming
episodes (here's one harmless -- but fun -- little spoiler from the interview: Alia Shawkat and Michael Cera from "Arrested Development" are guesting on "Veronica Mars" soon).

Anyway, big spoilers are marked, and they're lower down in the post. The first section does not
contain any spoilers about future episodes. But be forewarned: Sections
of this interview contain information about upcoming plots developments
on “Veronica Mars.”

You’re directing the Jan. 25 episode [titled ‘Donut Run’], is that the first time you’ve ever directed?

“It’s my first time directing professionally. I directed a short
film a few years ago that I wrote and financed, but this is the first
time that I’ve done it for mass consumption.”

Any jitters?

“Plenty, actually. I was very nervous. I had particular neuroses
about when to actually yell ‘Action.’ [laughs] Because there are a
string of people shouting at that point, you have [people yelling]
‘Speed,’ ‘Background’ and ‘Rolling,’ it’s like, ‘Where in there do I
actually say “Action”?’ And if I blew it in front of the crew on the
first day I was going to be really bummed. I never actually did make
that mistake. I did make a mistake [once], apparently everyone had
shouted their various commands, and I was just sitting in my director’s
chair watching the monitor, wondering why nothing was happening, not
realizing that I hadn’t actually called ‘Action.’”

Was that on the first take or the first day?

“No, fortunately, that was about day seven of an 8-day shoot.”

How did it come about that you directed this one, an episode that you wrote, did that just make sense?

“No, it could not have made less sense, for me to direct an episode
right smack in the middle of the season. And it about killed me. For a
month there, I was doing two jobs, and they’re both very full time,
directing an episode and still running the show and looking at cuts of
the show, looking at scripts, doing casting -- all of that had to keep
going while I was directing, and it was really difficult. I think if I
direct in the future, it’ll be episode 20, 21 or 22, so all the scripts
are in [and finished], and I don’t have both hats on at the same time.

“Being a first-time director, the network is, what’s the word I’m
looking for -- they don’t want a first-time director directing one of
their sweeps episodes, so it created a limited number of episodes that
I could choose from.”

Did you make sure you’d get to direct one you’d written?

“Yeah, once I got on the books to direct, I made sure that I wrote that episode.”

The scene between Alyson Hannigan and Charisma Carpenter in “My Mother, the Fiend” was great. Is there any chance that could happen again, or that Alyson might come back again?

“Well, to work around Alyson’s schedule is really difficult for us. It’s hard to plan to write an episode with Alyson in it because we don’t know exactly what her free days are. Even the episode that we did with her, there was a huge kerfuffle, we actually had to slide that story line one episode down from when we originally wrote that. We’ve loved having Alyson in the show, and I’m sure we will again, some day, if she’s willing, because we’ve had a lot of fun with her. But we have nothing booked with her right now.”

The alternate ending to “My Mother, the Fiend” was pretty intense. Was that something you did because the network said, “Hey, we want to try this as a promotional tool”?

“In that particular case it was the tail wagging the dog. Somewhere between the network promotional department and [executive producer] Joel Silver [the idea was hatched]. We had already broken that episode and we knew what we were doing, and they came to us and said, ‘Hey, can you give us an alternate ending that we’ll promote?’

"We never seriously considered having that be the ending. There were various other endings that we did have, but they were so subtly different, it was like, ‘When does Veronica enter the room?’

“But once we could have a [very different] alternate ending, we thought, ‘Let’s make it rock.’ The beauty of having that alternate ending is that we don’t have to play it out in the next episode. And so let’s go for it and do something fun and kind of shocking. Fans shouldn’t regard that as a clue to what’s ‘really going on,’ in the sense of [using that in] figuring out the season-long mystery.”

Well, yeah, that would have taken the show in a whole different direction.

“Yeah.”

Thomas talks about Jackie Cook, a new character introduced this season.

People don’t seem to like Jackie. What’s your take on that?

“My take on it is when the first thing Jackie does is come in and hurt Wallace, that all of our fans are going to hate her. It’s fine if they dislike her. Here’s an error in judgment on my part: When Jackie came in, and there was that episode where [Duncan, Veronica, Wallace and Jackie] went on a double date. Jackie and Wallace seem to have a good time, and then Veronica sees Jackie with another guy a couple days later, and Veronica’s really sort of [crabby] and bristly.

“I really wanted to play a story where we’re unsure who is right in this situation. Because in my mind, Jackie went on one date with Wallace then went out with another guy a few days later -- she didn’t lie, she said she had plans. To me, it was like, you could sort of go either way on that [situation, regarding Jackie’s behavior].

"But all of our fans decided that Veronica’s just right and has a good instinct and was perfectly in the right to be sort of rude to Jackie. So that didn’t quite land how I wanted it to. I wanted it to be, ‘Who’s being uncool here, Jackie or Veronica?’ Well, [laughs] the audience decided Jackie.

“But here’s the thing, the story arc that I have for Jackie -- I haven’t changed it at all. I think she’s a fantastic actress and she’s got more to play. Whether fans end up liking Jackie Cook is possibly up in the air, but I hope they end up liking [actress] Tessa Thompson, because she’s really, really good. And the next few episodes we have are certainly showcases for her.”

I think sometimes fans fall into this -- and I catch myself doing this too -- you want it to be like the Scooby gang on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” where for the most part they get along and are friends. But that’s not this show.

“Right. We want to keep it a noir universe. And my feeling was, going into this year, that Veronica’s got a really solid friend [in Wallace], and given her relationship with Logan, we know that they have a soft spot for each other. Sure, they can be snarky now that they’re broken up, but I wanted another character who could mix it up with Veronica, someone who is kind of as clever and sure of herself as Veronica. I’d kind of lost some of that with Logan and Veronica’s relationship with Season 1. So that was the idea [with Jackie].”

Spoilers about upcoming episodes ahead.

Later this season, we will see a TV movie on ‘Veronica Mars’ about the murder of Lilly Kane, right?

“Yeah, you will see Aaron Echolls a few more times and I will say that we will cut into his trial.”

And in an upcoming episode, there’s a bachelorette party at [Veronica’s workplace,] Java the Hut and someone gets kidnapped.

“Wallace starts going out with this girl occasionally. I don’t want to say too much on this front [pause]. To say ‘a girlfriend’ is too much of a stretch, but a girl that Wallace has gone on a couple dates with…”

Is it Jackie?

“No. This girl’s older sister’s getting married and stop one on a bachelorette scavenger hunt is to sing karaoke, some vaguely dirty karaoke song, at Java the Hut. So Veronica sees them and they’re clearly partying pretty hard. And then the girl comes to Veronica the next day and says, ‘My sister has disappeared.’ The question is, is this a runaway bride situation, or has there been foul play? Veronica dives into that.”

Any other casting news?

“I’ve got the best casting news, I’m so excited about it. The two kids from ‘Arrested Development’ [Alia Shawkat and Michael Cera] are going to be on Episode 16.” [“Donut Run” is Episode 11, for those keeping score at home.]

That’s so cool.

“Honestly, the day I heard they were shutting down production on that show, I called our casting director and said, ‘Book them for “Veronica Mars” as soon as possible.’ I didn’t talk to Alia, but I talked to Michael and it turned out he’s a ‘Veronica Mars’ fan and is excited to be doing it. So I’m thrilled about that.”

Who will they play?

“The interesting thing is they’re both playing college freshmen, which means [laughs] that two 16-year-olds are playing 19-[year-olds], and all of our our twentysomething actors are playing 18-[year-olds] in that episode. But I think it’ll be passable.”

So Veronica encounters them on the campus of Hearst University [Hearst, not Hurst, as I originally had it -- thanks Cassandra]?

“Yeah, Veronica goes on a college visit and she meets both of them. The two of them aren’t actually in the same scenes, because they did ask that they not play cousins or cousins in love, so they’re not [playing characters like that]. There’s one party scene that they’re both in, but they don’t interact.“Michael will play a freshman in college showing prospective freshmen around, and Alia, if I told you what she played, it would really be giving away the mystery.”

The bus crash, when does that kind of come to the fore?

“We’re breaking the final five right now, and the bus crash becomes what most of it is about. The clues start coming faster in the final episodes. We try to do one element of the bus crash story in every episode, but the clues will be meatier the closer we get to the end.”

By the way, if the show was just a bunch of scenes between Enrico [Colantoni, who plays Keith Mars] and Kristen [Bell, who plays Veronica Mars], I would watch that.

“Then we’d be ‘Gilmore Girls’ [laughs].”

Which is fine. But yeah, they just have such a great chemistry. Someone in the press named that Season 1 scene where Keith tells Veronica that he’s her biological dad their favorite TV scene of the year.

“Yeah, I read that too. I wrote that scene and you just look at the words on the page, and it’s one of those examples of great acting and great chemistry making very pedestrian writing sing. They took very average material and made that scene great. And they’re very fond of each other off-screen, so I’m sure that helps.”

Thomas on the details of “Donut Run,” which airs on Wednesday, Jan. 25. This section is quite spoiler-y.

[The big secret of “Donut Run” is…] “Throughout the episode Veronica is actually helping Duncan and Duncan is gone at the end of the episode.”

Is it an act that they’ve broken up?

“It’s not an act that they’re not [together at the end of the episode, for logistical reasons]. The [public] breakup is the act. He’s leaving at the end of the episode, so they are de facto broken up at the end of the episode. But they have a very public breakup in front of everyone, which is sort of used to defuse suspicion away from Veronica when the crime actually takes place.”

After Duncan leaves town, is he on the lam for a while?

“Yes.”

And Lucy Lawless is the FBI woman tracking him? Is she heavily featured in the episode?

“Yeah, she’s got some great scenes with Sheriff Lamb.”

Is he flirting with her or anything? I just picture him trying to be all macho and hitting on her.

“Yeah, he’s certainly trying to cozy up to her, but she’s having very little of it.”

Kendall Casablancas is in the episode as well, right?

“She is in it briefly, but it’s part of the setup [of Duncan and Veronica’s staged breakup]. Veronica enters Duncan’s hotel suite and finds Kendall. Duncan is gone but Kendall’s in the shower. It’s one of the things that spurs this very public breakup. But it’s more for show, so that the news of it sweeps the school. But I think it plays into the audience fears of what’s going on between Duncan and Kendall.”

What is going on there?

“There was an episode in which Kendall appears in Duncan’s bedroom and pretty much invites him to …”

Be her sugar daddy.

“Yeah, and we cut out of that scene before ever giving any answers [as to what happened between them]. So I think the audience is a little unsure what happened in that bedroom.”

But Duncan doesn’t seem to be that guy.

“Right.”

It was sad that Meg died.

“Yeah, it was. I love the actress [Alona Tal] and she was great in the show. It’s a drag.”

But it made sense to move that part of the story along?

“The intention was always to get Meg to survive long enough to give birth. What we were really interested in was having that baby. So for our storytelling, it’s less about wanting to kill Meg [and more about] wanting to have this baby that’s in jeopardy, that’s Duncan’s baby, that brings a point of crisis with Duncan and Veronica.”

So him and Veronica breaking up -- it’s really just a factor of him not being there anymore, he has to leave town?

“He leaves because he has to get away with this baby, and one of the final things that Veronica says to him is, ‘We can’t write, we can’t call, we can’t e-mail, we cannot see each other again after you leave here.’ Which is more a practical matter than either of them wanting to be out of that relationship.”

So Wallace is back, that gets explained?

“Yeah, that gets explained in [‘Donut Run’], and then we really dive into it more in the next episode. You get a hint [in ‘Donut Run’] and then it explodes in the next episode.”

And Logan’s still trying to get out of that murder rap.

“Yeah, and in [‘Donut Run’], he and Weevil have started working together, they both have a motivation to figure out who really did kill Felix [suspicion of that crime that still hangs over Logan]. It’s sort of phase one of them working together in that episode.”

They’re kind of a fun couple.

“Yeah, we really love the scenes with those two.”

Jason Dohring [who plays Logan Echolls; there's an interview with him here] just brings such good hate. You’d almost hate to have Logan’s life get really peaceful and good.

“Yeah [laughs].”

Is there any chance that Logan and Veronica will get back together? Will that ever happen?

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